Facebook Testing Revamp of ‘Nearby Friends’ With ‘Wave’ Feature

Facebook is removing the map from its ‘Nearby Friends’ feature, which let your friends see your precise location, and instead now lets you ‘Wave’ to broadcast your proximity to them.

TechCrunch in a report on Saturday said that it had noticed the map being removed from the Nearby Friends service on the More tab of the Facebook app.

Facebook as also confirmed that the feature allowing people see your precise location for limited period on a map is no longer available. “That strips ‘Nearby Friends’ main visual component, too, making it now just a list of people’s proximities and neighborhood,” the report added.

Facebook has also introduced ‘Poke’ successor ‘Wave’ that addresses the core flaw of Nearby Friends that “just because someone is in your proximity, does not mean they are available”.

With ‘Wave’, users have the option to send a wave to friends they see in Facebook ‘Nearby’ to let them know they are interested in what that friend is up to.

“We are testing a new feature within ‘Nearby Friends’ allowing people to send their friends a waving hand emoji to say “hello” and help them meet up. This is meant to give people more ways to express themselves, and help friends interact with one another in new fun and light ways,” the report quoted a Facebook spokesperson saying.